gien ye.'

'True. Heaven's gifts are seldom much worth the asking.'

'Haud yer tongue, my lord, and dinna bring doon a judgment upo' my
hoose, for it wad be missed oot o' Rothieden,'

'You're right there, Miss Naper. And here comes the whisky to stop
my mouth.'

The Baron of Rothie sat for a few minutes with his feet on the
fender before Miss Letty's blazing fire, without speaking, while he
sipped the whisky neat from a wine-glass. He was a man about the
middle height, rather full-figured, muscular and active, with a
small head, and an eye whose brightness had not yet been dimmed by
the sensuality which might be read in the condition rather than
frame of his countenance. But while he spoke so pleasantly to the
Miss Napiers, and his forehead spread broad and smooth over the
twinkle of his hazel eye, there was a sharp curve on each side of
his upper lip, half-way between the corner and the middle, which
reminded one of the same curves in the lip of his ancestral boar's
head, where it was lifted up by the protruding tusks. These curves
disappeared, of course, when he smiled, and his smile, being a
lord's, was generally pronounced irresistible. He was good-natured,
and nowise inclined to stand upon his rank, so long as he had his
own way.

'Any customers by the mail to-night, Miss Naper?' he asked, in a
careless tone.